Cart

Tag Archives | Debunking

About.com‘s Urban Legends page debunks the burning snow videos that have been making the rounds of the usual sites of late:

Severalvideoshavecroppedup on YouTube documenting a “weird phenomenon” variously described as “burning snow,” “fake snow,” “chemical snow,” and “snow that won’t melt.” The videos show people holding cigarette lighters and blowtorches up to a handful of snow and remarking on how the latter seemingly blackens and “burns like plastic” instead of melting, all the while giving off a “chemical odor.”

As is the fashion these days, some folks are resorting to conspiracy theories in lieu of science to explain the phenomenon, the result being onebigInternetfreak-out over supposed government-backed weather manipulation (“geo-engineering”), chemtrail fallout, nanobot invasions, and HAARP attacks (I even found one article using the term “false flag”).

"You yell UFO, everybody says, "Huh? What?" You yell Sky Shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July."
Via Forgetomori:
Last month, video shot of a purported UFO by Brazilian teenagers caused a bit of a stir in skeptical and UFO-friendly circles alike. The footage of a shiny, spherical object cruising through a beautiful, blue sky certainly looked like the real thing, but as it turned out, the "UFO" had an Earthly origin - albeit a highly amusing one: It was a remote-controlled helium shark manufactured under the name "Air Swimmers".
After receiving its due 15 minutes of fame via quick-on-the-trigger local media, the flying fish was revealed to be the property of a neighbor.
Here's some footage of the shark over the skies of Brazil. Click through to view a commercial for the product: